What assistance is the United States providing to Russia to help with stockpile destruction?
On 30 July 1992 the United States signed an agreement with Russia concerning the safe, secure, and ecologically sound destruction of Russia’s chemical weapons. This agreement outlined several types of technical assistance for the Russian destruction program, including material, training, and services, that the Department of Defense would make available to the Russians at no cost. The original value of the assistance to be provided was not to exceed $25 million. US and Russian experts have engaged in a series of bilateral activities to test and select the technologies to be used in Russia’s destruction program, including the joint evaluation of Russian neutralization and bituminization technologies. A US contractor was retained to help the Russians lay plans to destroy their stockpile, which is spread among seven different sites. Congress added another $30 million to that amount in 1994 for the construction of an analytical laboratory to support the Russian chemical weapons destruction
